


King of a Thousand Years

by MercuryHomophony



Category: Adventure Time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryHomophony/pseuds/MercuryHomophony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When people start disappearing from the Land of Ooo, Finn and Jake are sent to investigate. But their prime suspect, the Ice King, is missing too! It’s up to them, along with Marceline, to find out what’s going on and stop the new threat to the Land of Ooo!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Depths of the Ice Palace

**Author's Note:**

> This is ported over from Tumblr, and will be finished here.

Marceline floated above her couch, carefully tuning her bass, throwing out a strum or two here and there to check it. A small smile widened on her face as she finally got it tuned to her satisfaction, and she slung it over her back, along with the keyboard Ice King had left behind during their last jam session. “Geeze, old man, you’re so forgetful sometimes,” she chuckled to herself, grabbing her wide-brimmed sunhat heading outside. “Be a good boy, okay?” she called to her dog, then shut the door behind her.

She floated towards the cave’s exit, humming some new tunes she had thought up between last week’s session and now. It was a little more bouncy than her usual stuff, but Marcy thought her old friend would like it. Heck, he would probably like almost anything she came up with. After their first (emotionally draining) jam session, she had surprised him showing up at his house, axe-bass in hand, ready to play some jams. The old guy had practically tripped over himself in his excitement to get everything set up. They had played a couple of songs, nothing too great, but still. She wasn’t really sure at first if he was happy to see her, specifically, or if he was just happy to have company at all. After the third time, though, when the wizard didn’t even complain about her letting his current princess prisoners go, she figured it was her. Marcy usually took care of the lyrics, since his tended to either fly far right into creepy princess-stalker-ville, or far left into emotional making-Marcy-cry town. He took care of the beats – could lay down some really sick beats. It was pretty obvious that the crown hadn’t affected his musical talent.

She felt bad about it, sometimes, when she saw how happy he was when they hung out. She realized that all this time, he really needed a friend. And what had she done? She had turned him away every time he had shown up on her doorstep. Granted, she hadn’t known that the crown was the reason he had forgotten. She had been so mad to think about it, this crazy old man, her father figure from when she was little, had just forgotten her like she was nothing. And yet, he still had the nerve to show up at her door and pretend they were friends. She had suffocated her guilt then with her anger, but when she found those lyrics he had left for her, when she learned about the crown’s real curse… All the guilt came back. That’s probably what had driven her out to the Ice Kingdom the next week, where she had found Ice King reading an awful, awful story to a handful of kidnapped princesses in cages. After listening to the end of it, she had messed around with him for a bit, then told her own story to the appreciative princesses. He had seemed kind of peeved about it all, and had kicked them out afterwards (princesses included!), and she hoped he wasn’t too mad at her. But when she had shown up later with her bass, he had already forgiven her and was more than willing to pull out his drums and keyboard and lay down some beats. He wasn’t bad – his voice was much rougher than it had been back when she was young – but his drum and keyboard skills hadn’t lessened. She hadn’t asked if he still played guitar – she thought watching him play would bring back too many distant memories.

She was almost at the castle, its icy blue spires rising up in the distance. She glanced up at the sky, as best she could without exposing herself to the sun. She was pretty early. He wouldn’t be expecting her for another few hours. She grinned, an expression that vanished into thin air as she became invisible. She might be his friend, but she was also still Marceline, Vampire Queen, and she wouldn’t pass up the chance to mess around with someone. Silently, she slipped through the window, expecting to see some kidnapped princesses or Ice King lifting weights (he went from being horribly overweight to horribly thin – she wasn’t sure how he managed), but instead, all she saw was penguins. The majority of them swarmed around, “Wenk”ing loudly and waving their flippers. One in particular, whom she recognized as Gunther, seemed to be looking for something in the furniture.

“Huh, this place is kinda a dump today,” she said quietly to herself. She floated through the main rooms, looking for Ice King, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of him. She flopped loudly into an armchair, scaring several penguins. Well, she was early. She’d just wait. He was bound to come back eventually.

Or… she could take the time to snoop. A thoughtful look crossed her face. She had thought about taking a look around the deeper parts of the ice castle before, but she hadn’t had a good opportunity before. She glanced out the window – the sun was still pretty high in the sky. She had plenty of time before he’d be expecting her, and he wasn’t around at the moment. She floated up off the couch, decision made, and headed for the spiraling slide/staircase that led down into the depths of the palace. She made her way down, down, until she was deep in the ice, far away from the sunlight. A multitude of passages branched off from the staircase, other spirals sprouting in different directions – some seemed to go on forever, some led nowhere, and she shook her head. The functionality of this place was crazy. She didn’t know how he managed to find all of his junk when he needed it, but he had gotten along fine with it for hundreds of years, so she supposed it worked. She ignored most of the passageways – they either looked too boring or too sharp for her to bother with. The spiraling slope eventually ended, leaving just an icy pit at the bottom. She peered down one of the passageways by her, then down into the pit. Near the bottom, she could see some light. “Maybe he’s down there,” she thought to herself, jumping down and gently floating to the bottom. There was another short passageway, and a room around the corner where the light was coming from.

She grinned wickedly to herself, slowing down as she approached. She shifted into her bat form (that was sure to make him jump!) and raised her arms as she shed her invisibility.

“Ice Kiiiing~!” she shouted as she jumped around the corner, arms raised, fingers wiggling. The sight that met her eyes made her freeze. There was no Ice King there, just a small lamp that shed an impressive amount of light, although it was helped by the reflecting surfaces of the ice. The light sat on a desk, behind which were piles and piles of old, worn down junk. Her breath caught, her mind blown back to years ago. The junk piled around the room looked largely to be pre-Great Mushroom War scrap, collected and thrown into an untidy heap. A bent stop sign, an old record player, books – lots and lots of books – all littered the ground. She shrank back down to her normal form and landed with a soft sound. She had known that he had kept some stuff (where else would he have gotten those pages he used for “lyrical inspiration”?), but this was… incredible.

She looked down at her feet, where a handful of papers were scattered on the ground. “They probably fell out while he was going through some books,” she said to herself, her eyes taking in the papers and the open books. Carefully, she stepped over to one, square, with a black cover, and flipped it open. Her own face, from over 900 years ago, smiled back at her, and her breath caught again.

“Simon! Simon!” she laughed, pulling at the corners of her mouth and sticking out her tongue. “ ‘ake a ‘icture of ee ow!”

Simon laughed with her, pulling the old polaroid up to his face and snapping a photo. “You look super ferocious, Marcy,” he chuckled, taking the photo as it rolled out of the camera. “Positively terrifying.”

Marcy grinned with little sharp teeth. “That’s ‘cuz I’m super tough! See?” She made more scary faces, wiggling her fingers menacingly. Simon feigned terror, snapping another picture.

“Oh no,” he cried dramatically, a smile threatening to break his character. “I’m so scared!”

“Yeah, well you should be!” Marcy jumped on him, knocking him over. “’cuz I’m gonna tickle you!” She started tickling his ribs, and he dropped the camera as carefully as he could before wriggling to defend himself.

“Oh! Haha-ha-ha-hah-Marcy-eeheeheehee-Marcy stop-ahahahaha!” he flailed, trying to protect his sides and catch his breath and plead with the toddler all at once. “Marcy I can’t-ahahahahahaha!” He hugged his sides while Marcy grinned at him, trying to find a way through his arm barrier. “This means war!”

Marcy let out a little laughing shriek and jumped off him, running as he rolled to his feet and chased after her. They chased each other in circles around their camp until finally Simon fell to the ground next to the camera with a little huff. Marcy threw herself into his lap and hugged him. He felt cold, as usual, which she thought was weird, ‘cuz it was a nice afternoon and they’d just been running and stuff, but she was quickly learning that there was a lot of weird stuff when you traveled with Simon. As his breathing evened out some, she grinned up at him. “You should get a picture of us together!” she said. “You’ve only been taking pictures of me – I want a funny picture of you too!”

He smiled at her, pushing his glasses back up his long nose. “Alright, Marcy, whatever you want.” He lifted the camera awkwardly and pointed at them, grinning with his pointed teeth. “Smile!” She made a funny face and he clicked the button -

Their faces looked up at her from the page, his smiling and happy and tired, hers silly and young and unknowing. There were maybe a dozen or two pictures of her, each with a small note painstakingly written below it, her name, her age, the occasion. But the only one of him from then was that single picture. She flipped through more pages until she got to the last one, which was blank save for a note written in the middle of the page:

“This is Marcy. Don’t forget her.”

Marceline felt like she might cry. She closed the book and hugged it to herself, sniffling. He knew he wasn’t going to remember her, even then. He had taken so many pictures of her using what could have been the last roll of film in existence, just so he could remember her face. She clenched her eyes shut. She had ignored these memories so long, and yet, he had kept all of these pictures, safely stored away down here, for all these years - !

Her eyes flew open, and darted around the room. If he had these, what else had he kept here? She lifted herself off the ground and floated over to the desk, putting the book down and picking up one of the stacks of papers. Sitting down in the desk chair, she began to read.

————

Ice King – that was his name, wasn’t it? – woke with a crushing headache. Against his closed eyes, he could feel harsh, hot light. He groaned and tried to lift his hands to cover his eyes, but found them shackled at his sides.

“So, you’re awake,” an authoritative male voice echoed somewhere nearby. “Good. We were worried you’d been too damaged.” He heard the sound of a chair scraping against the floor. “We have some questions we’d like to ask you.” Ice King opened his eyes, squinting, and found himself staring at a frowning human face. “Let’s talk.”


	2. Chapter 2

“So…. we just gotta run this maze?” Finn asked, looking up at the metal walls. Princess Bubblegum nodded.

“I’ve been training Science to design and implement her own experiments, using technology that I built. This is her first try, and she requested that you two run it first before she runs her first population sample through, just to test it.

“Aww man, I hate tests,” Jake groaned.

“Oh, no, it’s not that kind of test,” Bubblegum assured him. “Think of it as, a… like an obstacle course!”

“Aw Math! We’re totally rad at obstacle courses!” Finn shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

“I know, that’s why we asked you to run it.” PB smiled. “That way, if there’s anything in there that would be too dangerous for the candy people, you can let us know. I trust you can deal with whatever Science has planned.”

“You can count on us, Princess!” Finn turned to Jake. “You ready bro?”

“Yeah, let’s do this!” They prepared to charge in, when Bubblegum stopped them.

“Wait!” They froze. PB pointed to a light above the maze entrance. “You guys have to wait until Science gives the signal.”

“Oh.” They turned to the small habitat on the table near them, surrounded by computers and monitors. Inside, Science the rat was messing with some controls. “Whenever you’re ready, little buddy.”

The little candy-corn rat nodded at them, pressed some buttons in his habitat, then gave them a thumbs up and a squeak. “All right, on my signal,” Bubblegum held up her hand. The two heroes got ready. “Three, two, one, GO!” Her hand dropped, and the brothers sprinted towards the maze entrance.

“Princess! Finn! Jake!”

The two skidded to a halt just outside the maze, and everyone turned to the doorway, where Peppermint Butler stood, waving his arms in obvious distress.

“Pepbutt, what’s wrong?” Finn asked.

“Princess Bubblegum, there are several princesses upstairs waiting for you,” the candy butler told her, ignoring Finn’s question. “They say that their subjects are disappearing at an alarming rate! And they’re not the only ones. Other princesses have sent notice that they will be arriving shortly! They’re calling together a Super Princess Order Council of Kingdoms!”

“Oh man!” Finn turned to the princess. “A Super Princess Order Council? That sounds super serious!”

“It is,” Bubblegum responded. She turned to the rat habitat. “Sorry Science, but your experiment will have to wait.”

The rat gave her an understanding nod. PB turned back to the two heroes. “Come with me.”

The three of them followed Peppermint Butler up the stairs from the basement. “The Super Princess Order Council of Kingdoms is a super big deal,” Princess Bubblegum explained. “It was created way back at the founding of Ooo, by a strong group of princesses, in order to defend their subjects in the case of an inter-kingdom emergency. There’s never been one in my lifetime, fortunately. Until now…”

“Because all of our lumping subjects are disappearing!” a very familiar voice cut in as the four of them reached the palace’s main floor. LSP floated over to them, followed by a crowd of princesses. Most of them were murmuring worriedly to one another. Finn turned to LSP.

“LSP? I didn’t think you had subjects… I mean, outside of Lumpy Space, that is…”

“Oh my glob, don’t be so mean, Finn!” LSP waved her arms at him as she spoke. “I had a totally awesome kingdom going on from my camp, with some totally awesome lumping' subjects, and they just all up and dis-a-peaaared!” She lowered her arms. “Also I guess that traitor Melissa and some of my Lumpy Posse are MIA.”

The rest of the princesses began crowding around, adding those they had lost.

“My hot-dog soldiers are missing -”

“My slime subjects are gone, and -”

“ - my books, and the Pagelings -”

“ - need to call a Super Princess -”

“ - Super Princess Council is - ”

“Princesses!” Fin raised his hands up placatingly. “Calm down. We’ll get your subjects back.” He turned to Bubblegum. “While you guys have your princess council, why don’t Jake and I go check around and see if we can find anything?”

“Thank you Finn, that would be most helpful.” She turned to the crowd of princesses. “Everyone, move into the council room! I’ll send the word out, and those of us who aren’t here already will meet us there!” The other princesses murmured in agreement, and began to file out of the room. Bubblegum leaned towards the boys and lowered her voice. “Try to see if you can find out who’s behind it. If you can get everyone’s subjects back, then even better – the outcomes of a Super Princes Order Council of Kingdoms can be… rather drastic. Or so I’ve read.” She straightened up, and followed the princesses away, giving the two a little wave.

“Awright,” Finn and Jake started walking towards the palace’s exit. “Jake, I think I’ve got a pretty good idea who might be behind all this.”

“Really? Who?”

“The Ice King! He’s always up to weird junk like this. Remember when he stole everyone’s trash for like, no reason? He’s gotta be behind this.”

“I dunno, man. Doesn’t Ice King usually go after princesses? Just kidnapping random peeps isn’t like him…”

“C’mon, Jake! Who else would pull off something like that? Ice King has snuck into practically everywhere at least once without being noticed.” When Jake didn’t look convinced, he added “It’s at least worth checking out.”

“Well…. alright bro.” Jake stretched out as they reached the drawbridge. “Hop on!” Finn jumped onto his back, and the dog’s legs grew, and he reared back. “Next stop, the Ice Kingdom!”

XXXXXXXXXX

“Restrain him.”

“Let go of me!” he roared, thrashing against his bonds, rocking the chair. “You can’t do this to me! I’m a king! I will turn you ALL into my frozen puppets! You will – urrgh…” He felt something click around his wrists, and suddenly his energy was gone. He slumped forward, breathing heavily. The crown, where was his crown, this wouldn’t be happening if he just had his crown – !

Nearby, two voices spoke briskly, but he could barely focus enough to hear them. He caught snatches of it – “…repressing… keep the manacles on him… in time…” and after a few minutes, he felt a hand on his shoulder. The straps keeping him in the chair fell loose, and he could have run, could have fled the interrogation room, but he was having a hard time thinking. His thoughts felt as they were wading through slush and

frost, yes, the power of frost, frozen, petrified, Petrikov –!

“Escort him back to his cell,” he heard with new clarity. “We’ll talk to him again later.” He was forced to his feet, where he swayed unsteadily for a moment. “Have a nice rest, Dr. Petrikov.” 

He didn’t respond, head hanging, hair covering his face, glasses hanging precariously on his long nose. Two young men stood on either side of him and half led, half marched him out of the room. An older man and his second in command stayed behind. 

“General Hammond, permission to speak.”

“Granted, Lieutenant General.”

“What Doctor Petrikov has been saying about the world, between his… episodes…”

“Spit it out, boy.”

“The system, the world that he describes… its nothing like our history books. There’s no precedent for it, no tactic that we’ve been taught.”

“And? What’s your question, Benjamin?” 

“What’s the plan? I know you must have one, and it must involve Dr. Petrikov, otherwise you’d work on interrogating some of our other prisoners. I wanted to know what it was, so that I might plan accordingly.” 

The general took a seat in his chair, and motioned for the lieutenant general to take the other. The younger man did so somewhat reluctantly, as frost still clung to the edges of it from its former occupant. The general leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped together. “Why don’t you tell me?”

The lieutenant general looked momentarily confused. “Sir?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Haron repeated, staring him down. “You’ve sat in on every interrogation since we began accumulating sources, you’ve heard what information I’ve gathered. What do you think is the plan?”

The younger man sat for a moment, thinking and formulating his response. “Well, you started off with basic surveillance – mapping out the territories, spying on locals, attempting to find any glaring potential weaknesses, et cetera. Our usual tactics were not as fruitful, however, due to the largely varied nature of the inhabitants of ‘Ooo,’ as they call it. So we moved to the next step – finding and abducting, if necessary, informants. Which is where Dr. Petrikov comes in.”

The general nodded, but he looked annoyed. “All you’ve done so far is to tell me what I already know. You’ve got to be quicker about this – if I were an enemy, you wouldn’t have nearly so much time to try and figure out my plan, and you’d have far less to work with.” He leaned back in the chair and gestured at the younger man to keep talking. “And pick up the pace.”

The lieutenant general sat up straighter. “Right. So Dr. Petrikov, after being separated from his source of power, has been a valuable informant. He knows nearly everything we would ever need to know about the land of ‘Ooo,’ and what one needs to do to survive there. He’s especially useful due to the fact that he used to be human, and therefore can provide information that is more valid. However, the questions you’ve been asking him as of late have not been concerned about dangers that we might face going up against the inhabitants of Ooo.”

“That’s right.”

“Instead,” he continued, “you’ve been asking questions about their social structure, which seems to vary wildly between their city-states. Given our training and our tactical advantage, I am not sure why you are asking these questions instead of more pressing ones concerning populations, weaknesses, potential targets…” he trailed off under the hardened gaze of the general. “Not that learning about the structure of your opponent’s society isn’t important,” he amended quickly, “but there are more pressing matters, I feel, then what we have been discussing with the Doctor.”

“I see.” The general stood up, turning away and clasping his hands behind him. “Tell me, Lieutenant General Benjamin,” he began, causing his subordinate to sink into his char a little. “On what part of social hierarchy is our good doctor familiar with?” When Benjamin didn’t answer right away, the general glanced at him over his shoulder. “Or rather, what part is Petrikov’s alter-ego, ‘Ice King,’ most familiar with?”

“The royalty. Largely matriarchal by appearance, although some of the history he’s given us shows us that this has not always necessarily been true…” he trailed off when he caught the general’s stare. 

“Yes. The princesses of this land are the highest members of society, and in fact, if some of our surveillance reports are to be believed, they are the very driving force behind the land of Ooo, as it appears many of their subjects are unable to take care of themselves. And yet, despite this…” he looked to the lieutenant general expectantly.

“And yet, despite this…” he picked up. “Despite this, Petrikov’s ‘Ice King’ has managed to kidnap the majority of them multiple times. So, they aren’t well protected.” Something clicked in his mind, and he stood. “In addition, removing them would neutralize many of the threats against us – the ‘kingdoms’ don’t make up all of Ooo, but they do form a significant portion. But taking them out wouldn’t be enough. The majority of their subjects may be feeble-minded, but the few who could figure out what was happening are powerful enough to retaliate.”

“Retaliation isn’t an issue, Ben. But, for the start of this, we want a leg-up on them.” He turned back to the lieutenant general, a proud smile directed at him. “So, we take a page from the Ice King’s book.”

He walked over to where the other officer was standing. Benjamin straightened up as he approached, and the general gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. “Good work. Needs to be a little faster, but no one is perfect.” He turned and headed towards the door. “Keep this up, and you might even surpass your old man one of these days.”

Benjamin Harmon allowed himself a pleased, proud smile as he watched his father leave the room.


End file.
